Developers Told To Stop Clearing Protected Land

Area Was Intended As Wetlands Buffer

OLD SAYBROOK — The town has ordered the developers of a proposed industrial project off Ragged Rock Road to stop clearing land in a protected wetlands buffer area.

The inland wetlands commission has ordered developers William Wilbur and Ted Zito to halt work in sensitive areas of the 9.44-acre parcel off Ragged Rock Road where the two want to build.

Alarmed neighbors, who have long opposed a construction project in the area, informed the town late last month that the developers appeared to be clearing trees in a protected vicinity.

The area is zoned for industrial use, but neighbors have argued that building there would be detrimental to the environment.

The developers last year were issued a permit to cross a stream and construct a driveway on the site.

William Childress, attorney for the developers, said this preliminary work had been completed, and the developers had recently begun clearing the site.

``There was some clearing done on the lot, not in the wetlands but within a regulated area,'' Childress said.

Some of the clearing took place in a 100-foot regulated area that is intended to remain as an undisturbed wetlands buffer.

Childress said the developers were unaware that their clearing work had strayed into a protected zone.

The inland wetlands commission has placed a cease and desist order on work in the protected site until the developers can provide the commission with a detailed engineering plan and a study of whether the errant clear-cutting has harmed the wetlands.

``He just came in one day and bulldozed the whole lot. It was a blatant violation,'' said Kathleen Pfannenstiel, a neighbor and an inland wetlands commission alternate member who has recused herself from this issue.

``It was a beautiful buffer of land. It served as a noise buffer and a dust and dirt buffer for the river and the area,'' she said.

Pfannenstiel said the stream that crosses the property is the only stream that runs into North Cove year-round.

``Who knows what the impact will be?'' she said. ``If you lose your buffer, you can't absorb all these contaminants.''

Childress said the exact scope of the building the developers are proposing hasn't yet been finalized.

The developers have not yet applied to the town for permission to build on the site.